You Should've Told Me
by Icanterbareback
Summary: Sonny was having the time of her life when she found out...something horrible. something that will change everything. absolutely everything.


I was having the time of my life when I found out.

Hands thrown in the air, energy creating a hot pulse through the room. I held my dress up off the floor with one hand, and jumped to the base of the music thumping from the speakers in my bare feet. The world was a swirl of strobe lights and hyped-up, yelling teenagers.

But the perfect moment would soon be broken by the person pushing their way through the crowd to tell me what had happened. The perfect night would morph into complete tragedy. And it was all my fault.

"Sonny!" the person called across the swelling music.

At first I didn't hear my name over the screaming crowd. My favorite song had just started playing, and the DJ turned the volume up louder still.

"SONNEY!" the person called again, much louder this time, and right next to my ear.

I turned, wide-eyed and startled at the person with a sad, anxious expression. Something was wrong.

"You need to come with me," the lady said, whom I think was a teacher.

"What happened?" I yelled back.

"They'll explain everything at the hospital," she answered calmly.

"The _hospital_?" I screeched. "What's going on? Is someone I know hurt?"

She didn't answer me. Nobody would. It was as if the world had sworn a vow to not answer Sonny Monroe, no matter how many times she screamed for an answer.

I was taken in a dark, silent car, buckled in without my consent, and driven away. I didn't recognize the driver. He didn't look at me. Didn't give me a name or a hello or even a glance in my direction. He only drove me.

When the car pulled into the hospital parking lot, I didn't wait for it to completely stop before stumbling out onto the cold pavement. Bare footed. I'd left my shoes at the dance. The left strap of my dress was slipping down my arm, and I shoved it back up into place. I picked up the skirt of my dress, and dashed through the automatic doors.

"Excuse me," I said to the woman at the front desk. "My name is Sonny Monroe. Could you tell me where—"

"Third floor, honey. Room 317."

How did she know that just like she'd rehearsed it?

"Can you tell me who I'm going to even see? And why this is so urgent?"

The woman looked at me with sympathetic eyes behind her glasses. "They'll explain everything once you're up there."

Once I entered room 317, I couldn't see who was in the bed, because the curtains were drawn. Again, the people in the room I didn't recognize. They all had hankies dabbing under their eyes or pinched at their noses. Nobody even seemed to realize I was there. I felt out of place in my prom dress. I awkwardly pulled at the edges of the skirt and shifted back and forth on my bare feet. Maybe I was in the wrong room.

But then I heard a voice. His voice. Coming from behind the curtain. Coming from the bed. It couldn't be him, though. It didn't make any scene for it to be him.

"Sonny?" One of the men from the group came forward, saying my name.

"That's me," I replied shakily. What was going on?

"Grant Cooper," he introduced himself, shaking my hand. "He's been asking for you."

"Chad?"

He gave me a stiff nod before turning away, obviously trying to get his emotions in check.

I felt awkward again. Why was Chad asking for me? I couldn't just walk over to the bed and strike up a conversation like we were old buddies. I didn't know him like that. My feet glued themselves to the cold, tiled floor and promised to never move again. Along with the rest of me.

The curtain was the only thing dividing us; at least the only physical thing. There were unspoken things, along with things that I said that I wish I could take back. And the words that weren't spoken, I wished I had enough courage to let them off my lips. A world of differences stood in the way of Chad and me getting along. So when I stood in that room tonight, I hadn't the slightest clue why he wanted me here. The white curtain between me and Chad, seemed like nothing now, compared to the emotional cement-thick walls between us.

I wanted to walk closer. I wanted to push aside the curtain, and look into his eyes, knowing what he wanted from me. But courage was drained from me, and all that remained was an empty, shaking body of Sonny Monroe. How did he always have that effect on me? My guard was always down around him; always completely vulnerable.

"Sonny…" a voice mumbled groggily.

It was him that spoke. Him that said my name. His voice that was involuntarily caused me to walk past that dividing curtain, and stop right over his bed, looking down at his sleeping body. His face was pale and sickly-looking. His arms, his neck, and his cheeks were crisscrossed with deep wounds closed up by stitches and various bruises. He was a mess.

"Chad?" I spoke carefully and softly, not wanting to wake him up.

I watched as his lips trembled and fought to separate and speak six little words. "I want them out of here."

"Who?" I asked him, half-expecting no answer because I thought he was merely talking in his sleep.

"Everyone. Except you," he struggled to say.

At first, I looked up, expecting someone to be standing on the opposite side of the hospital bed, and then I'd understand that he wasn't talking to me. But when my eyes traveled to the other side, there was a void where a person should. Where I _wanted_ a person to be. Now I knew Cha d wanted to talk to _me._

I turned towards his family, relatives, and friends, and somehow, they read my mind, and left us alone.

But once it was just Chad and me, an unpleasant feeling gnawed at my insides because now I knew exactly what he wanted to talk about and why he only wanted me in the room when he did.

I paced.

Bit my fingernails until there was nothing left to bite.

My heart was swelling in my chest like a balloon. How long before it broke?

"What happened to you?" I asked, surprised that my voice was so weak, as if the answer might be hard to handle; as if it might hurt me. No matter how many times I denied it, I felt something for Chad…a lot more than I should.

Chad hesitated. At first I thought it was because it was physically painful for him to talk, but then I began to wonder if the news might be too heavy, and that's why he didn't want to tell me.

"Please tell me." I hated surprises. I hated waiting. Even if what I was about to know was too much to bear…I had to find out.

Slowly, he began to open his eyes. The vibrant blue color of them instilled calmness through me, slowing my heart rate and making breathing marginally easier. All at once, he lowered his gaze to the sheets, playing with them in his hands. "I should've told you," he whispered.

"Told me what?" I asked softly, my pulse creeping up once more. My feet were beginning to ache, so I walked to the wall and slid down it, pulling my knees to my chest and having a seat. This way I was in a better position when he finally revealed the news.

I watched him carefully, waiting. Not sure what to expect. Not sure how scared I should be waiting for him to open his mouth again. I told myself to stay calm, and began to take out the bobby pins holding my hair up to distract my reeling mind from anticipating too much.

He closed his eyes again before he told me, "I have cancer. And I'm going to die."

In the midst of taking one of the pins out of my hair, I froze with my arms above my head. I felt my mouth go dry, my eyes burning in an unblinking stare, and my fingertips tingle as the blood flow traveled down my raised arm. Of all the things he could've said, this was the very last I would've expected.

"Wait, what?" I said. But I don't know why. Asking him to say it again wouldn't make it fallacious. The inevitable was still there; still cold-hard truth, whether or not I choose to believe it.

And I didn't believe it.

Chad didn't say anything else. He lay there in silence, and I stayed against the wall with my hand raised above my head, until I decided to finally move it down to rest in my lap. Only half of my hair came down, because I had only taken half of the bobby pins out.

We were both in that position for a long time. That damn emotional cement-thick wall that had always divided us. Why couldn't I break it? Tell him how I really feel.

As I watched him, his hand moved toward me, reaching out. "Come here," he whispered.

For just a moment I sat there frozen; scared to death to move any closer. I gulped in a breath, which was more of a gasp, and used the wall to help me to my feet. It felt strange and out of place to take steps towards him, because usually I took steps away. Or if I was moving closer, it was because he had done something wrong and he deserved to be yelled at. But tonight, I couldn't manage words. I crossed the room, filling the space between us. When I reached the bed, I didn't stand next to the bed to talk to him…

I gathered the fluffy skirt of the dress in one hand, and carefully lowered myself into the bed, laying right next to him.

I'd never been this close, I realized right then. Not even when we were fighting. Not ever.

Chad turned his head, gazing at me. He lifted a hand a played with my half-down hair until a hint of a smile crossed his lips. "You're beautiful."

Again, meaning to simply inhale a breath, I managed a small gasp. Or maybe it was the beginning of a sob, because I hadn't realized a tear had fallen until it reached my lips and I tasted the salt.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. Another soft sob escaped before I continued. "I should've gone with you to the dance. Then maybe you wouldn't be in the hospital right now."

"I would still have cancer, whether you went with me as a date or not," Chad explained patiently.

"But you wouldn't have all these stitches from…what exactly _did _you do tonight?"

His eyes met mine, intense with a memory. "Car crash," he said. Like it was no big deal.

"What?!" I gasped again, this time in hysteric outrage. More tears streamed from my eyes, angry and confused at the same time. How could all this be happening at once? "How did—where were—I didn't mean—but...how-?" I didn't even know which questions to ask. It was all just too much to handle.

"Sonny, calm down."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I screamed, sobbing at the same time.

"Tell you…?"

"That you had cancer! Why didn't you tell me?!"

I couldn't breathe. I was screaming words at him, not caring if I didn't have the air to speak them. I felt like my whole world was crashing at my feet and I wanted to know why. Why didn't I have a warning?

"I thought you might not care." He spoke the words without any emotion. As if, one way or another, he didn't care what my response would be. He was putting up a guard so he wouldn't be hurt by what I would say next.

"I cared," I told him, hoping he knew just how much.

He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me so close that my mouth was at his ear.

"How much longer to you have to live?"

I felt his breath on my skin as he whispered, "Not much longer."

A quick frigidness swam up through my veins, those words echoing in my brain over and over again. He was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it. There was nothing I could do to protect him from the inevitable death.

I just laid there next to him and cried. And he held me all night.


End file.
